Civil Service Reform in Africa: Mixed Results After 10 Years - Finance & Development - June 1998 - Ian Lienert

B EFORE 1985, many countries in sub-Saharan Africa had seen their nominal wage bills expand. This was due, in large part, to a rapid increase in civil service employment—in some countries, the number of civil servants rose by as much as 10 percent a year. This expansion reflected the high degree of government intervention in the economy as well as the need to educate and provide health care to burgeoning populations. Additionally, the state often guaranteed civil service jobs for graduates of institutions of higher education. Civil service employment was also a reward for political patronage. The rapid expansion of employment had been facilitated by reducing salaries, especially those at the higher end of the pay scale. For example, by 1985 an average civil servant’s real salary in Tanzania had dropped to less than one-fourth of what it had been a decade earlier. Management-level salaries eroded considerably during this period: in Zambia, for example, in 1971 an assistant director’s salary was 17 times the salary of the lowest-paid employee; by 1986, it was only 4 times as much. Overstaffing and low salaries had adverse consequences, including poor staff morale and a decline in work effort; difficulties in recruiting and retaining technical and professional staff; nontransparent forms of remuneration, especially nonwage benefits in cash or in kind; and strong incentives to accept bribes. Additionally, the nominal wage bill increasingly contributed to growing fiscal deficits in many African countries. Its increase relative to nonwage expenditures also had unfortunate results—teachers and health workers often lacked the materials they needed to do their jobs; roads were no longer maintained; law enforcement officers did not have vehicles; and so forth.